Tonight's meeting

I feel on top of the world right now. My WW leader was singing my praises during the meeting in front of everyone :) She talked about my blog, my facebook, my cooking and my husband. I'm sooo happy right now. Our meeting is so blessed to have her as the leader. Some new ladies behind me were talking about how funny she was and it's so true... No, Kathy you weren't babbling. Everyone was following you and we all think you're so awesome. You're the reason I come every week, other than the sit down part of course.

Another thing we spoke about at the meeting was food as rewards. I talked to the ladies behind me and realized that I didn't express myself quite the way I wanted to, to them. After I spoke to them, I realized exactly how the food as rewards was meant.

After thinking about it, I would say that I think treats and rewards are very different. What I do for myself once a week on WI day, is a treat for a good week. I indulge myself in the things I rein myself in from eating through out the week because they're higher points and I have to try hard to stay on plan during the week. My points have already gone down by 5 points each day.

In the WW weekly, there's a note in there about the old thinking before WW of someone saying, "If I lose five pounds, I'll reward myself with ice cream." I think there's a certain point where you can say things like that, but it's not good to do that all the time. I don't reward myself for losing little amounts. It's an achievement and the reward comes from people saying how fantastic that is when I tell them. Even for my 50 and 75lb losses I'm not planning on doing a food related thing for them. Buying a fitness video game for my 50lb seems like a great way for me. I really want Zumba 2 so I'm motivated. When I get my 75lb I'm planning on doing some shopping and when I hit goal I'll do some more shopping too :)

Believe because it works

Jennifer Hudson singing the same song, before and after 80lbs weight loss.

Competition

It's funny how competitive I am. The reason I've been striving to get these last two pounds to push me up into the 30lb lost mark is because this week is my SAS (stay and succeed) 16th week. Two or three weeks ago, I saw another girl get a 5lb sticker for losing 30lbs the same week she got her SAS. It shows the rest of the meeting that your average is around 2lbs a week. It's exciting! That's why I want to get my 2lbs tonight. I just had to challenge myself to do it.

For some reason, most of the stickers given out are for things like 5%, 10% and 5lbs between 5 and 20lbs total. There doesn't seem to be a lot of rewards being given atm for things like 30lbs and up. It's exciting for me, to have a large loss like that when they seem to be few and far between, but when the people who've lost more than me get a reward, I get jealous lol... kinda like I'll never get there... but as we see, sitting 2lbs away from the 30lbs and my SAS in the same week, I can get there.

Momentum vs. Points Plus

Josh hasn't been having much luck with Points Plus. He's lost 12.4lbs in 11 weeks. Now, yes, on paper that looks okay but the majority of that loss came in the first three weeks and after that he's been gaining and losing or just losing less than 0.5.

Last time his weight just fell off him and it was so easy. This time, it's pretty easy for me but not for him. I honestly don't think that it's the Points Plus system that's not working. I think that he doesn't want to give his all to it or that his loss might be the same on any plan because it's just harder to lose weight the 2nd time. Some people have to work harder than others the second time around.

I think Momentum will work for him because he wants it to work. But if it doesn't, he can always try Simply Filling.

Now the RL people have started it...

Before now, all my shortcuts posts have been about online ads I've seen (I think). This one came from facebook, from a friend (someone I used to ride the bus to college with everyday and came into my work all the time). 

My words to her =/= my thoughts. My thoughts:

• it's a marathon, not a race
• you won't be able to keep the weight off
• change your lifestyle, don't diet
• shortcuts may work now, but don't expect them to keep working
• that's just too fast

and then the kicker:

• I wish I could lose weight that fast... 

I fully hope she gets her diet under control and keeps it off but I don't expect it. The weight piled on for a reason, how do you expect to keep it off if you don't fix the problem. 

That would be like mopping the floor but not fixing the leaky pipe that caused the mess. Yes, the floor is clean, but as soon as you stop mopping and let your guard down, your floor will be covered in water again because you've just mopped, you haven't fixed the pipe.

I don't like my way of thinking. It scares me, but at this point, I've bad mouthed the fast ways of losing weight, and I succeeded on WW, so I would never go and try it. I know that WW works for me and I know that with eating healthy I will lose the weight eventually and I will be eating a diet that I can maintain for the rest of my life.

Food Review: Popped Cinnamon Crisps

At 2 PP per pack and sweet, these crisps get a better rating from me than the BBQ. They taste a lot like the Taco Bell cinnamon twists. Mmmm!

Eggland's Best and EmilyBites

October is Breast Cancer Awareness month and emilybites just blogged about Eggland's Best donating $ towards Susan G. Komen for the Cure and supporting her to host an awareness brunch for some family and friends. I think this is amazing on their part, but the food related awesomeness is that emilybites cooks WW friendly food! I've loved everything that I've tried from her site so far!

It's not a race...

... it's a marathon...

I've been searching online for items that weigh Xlbs and I find SOOO many pages asking how to lose 15lbs in a month. It's not HEALTHY to try lose that much weight.

Thinking to myself right now, I can say honestly I've lost 16.6lbs in 6 weeks. But I didn't try and starve myself to be able to do it. Someone did the caloric math on losing 15lbs in a month and to do that you'd have to burn 1700ish more calories or take in 1700 less every day. That would mean only eating about 300 calories a day. That's definitely unhealthy.

I don't understand why people do it the easy way and think they're cured. I'm living proof that you're not cured once you lose some weight. My weight watchers leader said she did that twice I think before she realized that she wasn't.

Weight Watchers isn't a diet, it's a lifestyle. Don't expect it to work for you if you think of it as a diet and don't expect it to work if you're not motivated. It takes being remotivated every day.

Food Review: WW Popped BBQ Chips

I just bought some of the Weight Watchers BBQ Popped Chips at my meeting last night. They are so good. They remind me of Pop Chips that we can find at costco but they're better even. They are heavier than Pop Chips and the BBQ tastes like the BBQ Crispers.

MMMMMM!

One month

I've been on weight watchers for just over a month now. I feel good, I've lost 13.4 lbs in a month. I wish this had made noticeable changes in certain ways so that we could be trying for a baby, but so be it. I'm still very happy when I'm not thinking about the baby situation =P

These are the things I like:

• feeling great at the scale when I lose more than I thought
• eating healthy
• feeling happier
• treats like candy/chocolate/chips, really are treats, not every day occurrences
• getting excited about new low point items I find
• being so picky that fancy holiday dinners just don't appeal and it's like a regular week for me :) see Thanksgiving
• being motivated

These are the things I don't like:

• Canada has a terrible selection of low fat good for you versions of classics like pillsbury dough, hot dogs, frozen dinners, ketchup, etc.
• being so picky that new veggies and stuff don't appeal to me
• time moves too slowly. Why isn't it Tuesday every day?

Tonight's meeting

At tonight's meeting I felt like someone who'd been on the plan for a long time. Why is that? Because I was almost on the plan for 1/3 of a year before I left last september.

Sitting in the meeting watching someone else get the SAS award felt sort of embarrassing and that I let myself down. I could be probably at goal by now but because I couldn't take the stress, I am back at square 1. Really, I'm BEFORE square one since I gained 10lbs beyond the weight that I originally lost.

I'm doing my best not to embarrass myself anymore. I'm sticking to it. I'm having a great time with it.

The only problem is... what on earth am I going to do when I get pregnant and am not allowed to be on WW anymore? How am I going to keep myself in check. Maybe I'll ask my leader about it when I get there. Maybe there's a way that I can calculate a maintenance DPT and then just certain extra foods to that to get the extra calories.

Why Weight Watchers Works for Me

I think that I wouldn't be half as successful if I was doing this on my own. There are two main reasons why:

1. I wouldn't worry so much about staying on plan when the only person to be accountable to is me. I would tell myself, it's okay, I've still got lots of time to lose this weight after I binge. Being at WW makes me a) pay to be on the program where I want to succeed so I'm not wasting my money and b) keeps me accountable week by week.
2. I get told EXACTLY how much I can eat/drink. If I was doing this on my own it would be "eating healthier" and healthier in comparison to how I was eating before could still include lots of junk each day. Getting the PP totals for a day makes me eat healthy, as opposed to healthier than I was before.